Edward Snowden, the former computer intelligence consultant who leaked classified NSA information in 2013 about their mass surveillance program and had his US passport revoked under the Espionage laws has become a Russian citizen. After the initial furore he fled to Hong Kong and then Russia. In 2020 a USA court ruled the program exposed by him was illegal and possibly unconstitutional. He has been called a traitor, a hero, a whistleblower, a dissident, a coward, and a patriot.
He was joined in Russia by his girlfriend now wife, acrobat/dancer Lindsay Mills, with whom he has two children. He has a job at an unnamed Russian IT company.
Born 21 June 1983 4.42AM Elizabeth City, NC, he is an assertive Sun Mars in Gemini in an Air Grand Trine to an unyielding Saturn Pluto in Libra trine an Aquarius Midheaven, formed into a Kite by Sun Mars opposition Neptune. Very bright clearly but also beyond stubborn with a can-be-fanatical idealist’s Air Grand Trine plus an unbudgeable Saturn Pluto.
He also has an adventurous, risk-taking Jupiter Uranus in Sagittarius opposition Mercury in Gemini. It’s a Fire Air chart – so he’ll tend to live in his head and be ungrounded. He can put his ideas into action but will have a tendency to stay high rather than anchor his feet to the ground – so can be unrealistic. He has no Earth signs and only one Water sign – a Scorpio Moon. A driven man but not one to consider practical consequences.
When he embarked on the actions which would upend his life in 2013 tr Neptune was in a head-in the-clouds, overly-optimistic square to his Jupiter Uranus with tr Uranus in a freedom-loving trine. Tr Saturn was also conjunct his Moon, separating him from his childhood family and home. More significantly tr Pluto was just into his 8th house for an extended decade of feeling trapped.
Tr Pluto is about to move out of his 8th in 2023 which will lift certain restrictions. But he still has the weight of tr Pluto square his Saturn to slog him through a discouraging 2023 alongside a debilitating tr Neptune square his Mars followed by tr Neptune square his Sun in 2024/25.
Whether the brave new world of Air and Fire emphasis from tr Pluto, Neptune and Uranus shifting signs over the next four years will affect his status is moot. Only by 2028 when tr Uranus crosses his Ascendant will he feel free of more restrictions.
Relocating his chart to Moscow puts his Mars Sun in the 10th so it is a location that can further his ambitions. Though with Neptune in the 4th it will demand sacrifices on the home and family front.
Lindsay, 20 February 1985, fills in for his emotional gaps with a Watery Pisces Sun, Mercury and Moon as well as Pluto and Saturn in Scorpio (not conjunct). Her passionately enthusiastic Venus Mars in Aries trine Uranus fits his fiery excitement-seeker side.
Their relationship chart has a possessive, life-changing composite Sun opposition Pluto which will be under strain over the next two years with tr Pluto in square. There’s also an ever-optimistic Jupiter Neptune conjunct and Venus opposition Uranus which thrives either with freedom or an unconventional setting.
They haven’t chosen an easy furrow to plough and the next few years look rocky.
I feel very sad for whistleblowers. They’re damned if they do, living very damaged lives after their acts of courage (Russian spies excepted) and damned by themselves if they don’t, for not acting ethically and according to their conscience. In a radio programme on whistleblowers, all of them said that they would have to do it again despite their suffering and losses, because they couldn’t live with themselves if they didn’t, but they all wished that it hadn’t been them, that they hadn’t been there, at that time, knowing or seeing what they did.
All of them sounded desperately sad.
I don’t know what, astrologically, would denote this high degree of moral courage, but there must be something.
@zita,
i totally agree with you. They act following their own conscience. Going against big vested interests that have the power to destroy any individuals. Being a state, or any big institution
There’ll probably be Scorpio somewhere prominent or strong Pluto. The curse of always finding out the truth, whether they want to know or not.
Do you let it change your whole life or do you let it change the way you look at yourself? Ignorance is bliss
Years ago I read an insightful thought about whistleblowers which I now can’t find. It said they were typically oddballs – unsocialized outsiders – who because they didn’t run with the herd saw what others didn’t (or wouldn’t).But for that very reason were easy to pick off and dismiss. So maybe Uranus?
@Roderick, personally, I think I just want to keep repeating the “Hillary was right” memes. She carries weight of a husband nobody really wants to see as First Gentleman.
But she said exactly the right things on Snowden, too, questioning the fact that he didn’t go through official whistleblower channels that are actually well established and were working in the US Government in the early 2010’s.
I’d be extremely surprised if she attempted another run for president. Her age would also now be an issue when it wasn’t before. And age is a main reason Biden is being discouraged from running for a second term. While she has a remarkably thick skin I’m sure she understands the Republican hate machine will go into overdrive to destroy her, Bill and Chelsea and her family. Does she really want to put herself through that at this stage in her life?
I don’t think Joe wanted to run the first time. I think he felt he had to. Beau Biden’s death left a huge loss. He had been on the path to become president. I like Biden, Joe Biden. Hillary hopefully won’t want to put herself through that again.
I know it’s only anecdotal, but I used to work with someone who was born just before him. It was 20 odd years ago and he was very young, but what stands out in my memory was an incident where he refused to work on a major contract with a US military base (quite a random client for us, but probably lucrative). He just would not budge, I heard him saying to his boss, who was trying to talk him round “if you have to fire me, it’s OK, I understand. But I won’t have any part of it”.
Anyway, my boss then says to me later “can you talk him round? It’s you that put all this Guardian nonsense in his head and it’s all just bravado trying to impress you”. So I guess the chart doesn’t matter, since it was all my fault apparently
Snowden case as a whole is a back of worms I would rather not reopen. But even when everything was going on, and the West was largely ignoring Russian information warfare, I had conflicting thoughts on people’s motivation. While Chelsea Manning – with a “Galactic Center” Sagittarius Stellium and, incidently, Scorpio Moon like Snowden – had sincere motivations, I always found Snowden and Assange more slippery. In the light of what has been discovered later, I think Snowden was a Russian asset by the time he was recruited as an US Intelligence contractor, and Assange probably recruited some time during Obama’s first term, likely by a mix of “kompromat” and enforcing his already strong resentment towards Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State at the time.
And now, Putin’s Regime really seems to have Snowden neck deep in things he would not like to be discovered
i am sure he is a russian agent !………like me !!!
Great. Hope you will be chopped up in the
Grinder.
@Leo, maybe not, but I would stay away from windows, wouldn’t drink tea, sniff perfume, or have guns at house.
The number of execs from Russian companies with Western interests who’ve died on very suspicious circumstances since the invasion is stunning.
never mind leo ! i ready have one foot in the grave….
@aline, did you flee to Russia facing a trial, and now live at a penthouse apartment at a very nice building in Moscow, while seemingly not working anywhere? If not, I’m not going to think you are a Russian asset. But the way Snowden “defected” to Russia is too close to comfort with how some of the Cold War defections of KGB agents were dealt with.
@solaia
well solaia, you were the one who said i was a ” russian agent”, only because i have a different opinion from yours ! You seem very quick in your jugments, and concerning me personnally in assertions ! And i will add you have no sense of humour
Interesting timing, with current news of Julian Assange’s new appeal against extradition at the European Court of Human Rights. He also has a Scorpio Moon, like Snowden and Manning. His Gemini Venus is conjunct Chelsea’s Chiron, opposes her Mercury/Saturn/Uranus in Sagittarius, and squares her Pisces Nodes. It is conjunct Edward Snowden’s Mars and Nodes, opposing his Neptune.
The atmosphere of our current retrograde Mars in Gemini square Neptune does somehow resonate with these tangled tales.
Apologies for being off topic, Jane but I note that the Mars/Neptune/Gemini/Pisces square with Mars also ocurred in April – May of 2019, coinciding with the public revelations of the split between William and Harry. I remember at the time thinking what could be more astrologically appropriate than two brothers at war with such a placement. The aspect was culminating when the feud became more visible at the Easter service the brothers attended on April 21st. Now that the square has returned, lo and behold the feud has ramoed up with the release of the controversial Netflix documentary and here we are again.
How amazing! Thank you, I hadn’t recalled that at all. You prompted me to think (!) and I looked at the date for Chelsea M’s memoir, README.txt. It came out here on 22 October. That day, Mars was 24 Gemini, square 23 Pisces Neptune. Chelsea’s Mercury 22 Sagittarius, Saturn 23 Sagittarius – Mercury and Saturn as history and memory? Her actions carrying both Neptune’s deceptive and idealistic qualities.
Edward Snowden’s Mars 24 Gemini, nodes 25 Gemini. Julian Assange has Venus, 25 Gemini. All three of them are in the news this autumn. If they were, symbolically, brothers then they are all at important moments in their lives. Just as William and Harry are – their feud, and the loss of their beloved grandmother unsettling the whole family. And, I sometimes think, the UK’s collective psyche too.
Chelsea’s release from prison was 17 May, 2017. Another Mars in Gemini (17) square Neptune in Pisces (14) time. Ten days later, Mars 24 Gemini opposed Saturn, 25 Sagittarius. Edward Snowden got married that year. Sweden dropped the rape charge against Julian Assange in May 2017 too.
What a pattern.
Solaia, it is funny that you should mention Hillary, but I think she is eyeing another run for president in 2024.
I wish you or Marjorie could look at her chart for the next couple of years to see what she’s thinking.